5.08.2006

The Unexpected Queer Pleasures of STICK IT

'Twas a Friday afternoon.And as 'tis The Stinkys wontStupid movie, 'twas the aim.And, for The Stinkys, the extraordinary idiocy of Stick Itproved a perfect piece of piffle.

Stick It's the gymastics riff-on/rip-of Bring It On -- that "new queer classic" (which really should be the tagline of a movie night on Logo). Beyond the fact that both movies seem "ripe" for porn retitling, both flicks do a genre swirl that's precisely queer: the physical narrative thrust of the sports movie mixed with the "hey! let's put on a show!" backstage musical. Mix in screenwriter Jessica Bendinger's post-Buffy, über-snarky dialogue. And you've got catnip for protoqueers... But there's something that makes Stick It sorta special. And, no, it's not the candy-colored Busby Berkeley-ized gymnastics sequences. (Thought not since Can't Stop The Music has a movie gym looked so freakin' fantabulous!)

So. What does StinkyLulu kinda sorta totally love about Stick It?The lead character, Haley.Possibly the coolest babydyke on screen in a long time, if not ever...

See Haley, played by Missy Peregrym, is possibly the the purest babydyke heroine yet. She's got it all. She passes for a boy through the whole first sequence. She's got the sexiness of tomboy tough -- she's both powerfully athletic and astonishingly pretty. She's annoyed by girlygirls of any age & tends to hang with guys. She's pissed at the conventions of female performance that limit what she and her friends can really accomplish.

But most important: Haley's got no heteromance to muddy the fantasy pleasure pool. (See Muddy Heteromance Exhibit #1 & #2). StinkyLulu simply can't think of a supersexytomboy in a mainstream movie -- even in the golden era of Jodie Foster & Kristy MacNichol -- where some lame boyfriend didn't show up as a prop for the alibi of hetero-probability. And it's not like there's any shortage of cute boys in the cast (See Stick It Cute Boy Exhibits#1 & #2). There's not even the homopanic of a mom who wants her jock daughter to wear a dress (GirlJock with Homopanicking Mom Exhibit #1).

No, Haley's got something special happening.So, lovely reader, keep your heart open for this dumb little movie. It may do some important work. And if you know/love a kid who may be on their way to a fabulously queer future, be sure they've got a ticket...